AllMusic Loves 1983

By AllMusic Staff · Apr. 11, 2012

If any year captured the heady rush of the early '80s, it was 1983, the year Michael Jackson's Thriller became a phenomenon and, not coincidentally, the year of MTV's prime. The cable network debuted two years earlier but '83 was when music videos took over, popping up on cable channels and network TV, and along with videos came a glorious period of hit singles by one-hit wonders, new invaders from Britain, and veterans who now mastered synths and drum machines, the latter inexplicably led by grizzled, hairy blues-rockers ZZ Top and the visionary jazz-fusion keyboardist Herbie Hancock. Underneath all this televised glitz were some major debuts: the first albums from Madonna, Metallica, R.E.M., and Hüsker Dü, and the first singles from the Smiths and Run-D.M.C. And there were the mammoth hits -- yes, Thriller, but also Def Leppard's Pyromania and the Police's Synchronicity, all giving us more than enough reason to love 1983.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine [Spotify]I've heard some call 1983 the last good year for music and while that's surely hyperbole, it was one hell of a year. What strikes me is along with all the new wave and college-rock landmarks -- including LPs like New Order's Power, Corruption & Lies, a bunch of '60s veterans had an exceptional year, including such singer/songwriters as Randy Newman, Paul Simon, and Bob Dylan. Another thing that strikes me is that trimming my singles list was damn near impossible -- I cut it back to 20 here, and on Spotify, I've added another 100 songs. At one point, there was another 100 on top of that but eventually you've got to say enough is enough.